Voter Fraud

01/22/2014

The Presidential Commission on Election Administration issued a bipartisan report today that shows what just about every other study has shown: That voter fraud is nearly non-existent.

Voter fraud is "rare" and mostly occurs by absentee ballot, concluded a report Wednesday by the Presidential Commission on Election Administration.

"Fraud is rare, but when it does occur, absentee ballots are often the method of choice," the report said, proposing expanded access to early voting as a measure to ease the sorts of long lines seen at the polls in the 2012 election.

The finding is likely to fuel an ongoing partisan debate across the country about the extent of fraud and the appropriate measures to deal with it. It is backed by other studies showing that fraud occurs but is extremely uncommon. A Justice Department study found that between 2002 and 2005, just 40 voters (out of 197 million votes cast for federal candidates) were indicted for voter fraud, and just 26 resulted in convictions or guilty pleas.

26. That's it. Yet the GOP continues to ignore reality and pushes the myth that voter fraud is rampant and that illegal voters lurk in every dark corner of polling locations just waiting to sway the elections. They use the voter fraud excuse to, of course, try and sway the election towards Republicans.

11/06/2013

Citing non-existent voter fraud, their effort to purge voters failed before 2012, and only served to encourage voter turnout. But Rick Scott and Ken Detzner are determined to purge more voters from the rolls, even though they couldn't find enough last time.

Now they're attempting to do what Republicans always resort to when they try to force their unpopular agenda on the public. They're re-branding.

The firm, Strategic Allied Consulting was hired by the RPOF who paid them over $1.3 million to sign up voters until forms that were questionable turned up. The RPOF then fired them, but the company claimed it was only a few bad apples who were responsible. Strategic Allied Consulting was also hired to do the same in Virginia, Colorado, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio and Wisconsin. They were also hired by the Republican National Committee.

Nathan Sproul who runs Strategic Alliance Consulting, has a history with voter fraud allegations, and after the Republican National Committee also dumped Strategic Alliance over the Florida allegations, Strategic Alliance put out this statement:

"When the Republican Party of Florida chose to make likely libelous comments about our effort and stated that the Republican National Committee suggested us as the vendor, the RNC was put in the unenviable position of ending a long-term relationship for the sake of staying focused on the election," the company stated.

Sproul said he created Strategic Allied Consulting at the RNC's request because the party wanted to avoid being publicly linked to the past allegations. The firm was set up at a Virginia address, and Sproul does not show up on the corporate paperwork.

"In order to be able to do the job that the state parties were hiring us to do, the [RNC] asked us to do it with a different company's name, so as to not be a distraction from the false information put out in the Internet," Sproul said.

01/24/2013

The Orlando Sentinel and a professor at Ohio State University, Theodore Allen, analyzed the data and have estimated that at least 201,000 people in Florida gave up on voting due to the long lines during the November election. At least:

His preliminary conclusion was based on the Sentinel's analysis of voter patterns and precinct-closing times in Florida's 25 largest counties, home to 86 percent of the state's 11.9 million registered voters.

"My gut is telling me that the real number [of voters] deterred is likely higher," Allen said. "You make people wait longer, they are less likely to vote."...]

[...In Florida, he concluded, the lost voters appeared to favor President Barack Obama. Of the 201,000 "missing" votes, 108,000 likely would have voted for Obama and 93,000 for Republican Mitt Romney, he said.

This suggests that Obama's margin over Romney in Florida could have been roughly 15,000 votes higher than it was. Obama carried the state by 74,309 votes out of more than 8.4 million cast.

11/29/2012

While Former Florida GOP leaders say voter suppression was the reason they pushed new election law, members of Florida’s Democratic Congressional delegation have written to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights requesting that it convene a hearing to investigate Florida’s 2011 electoral law, HB 1355, after former Republican state leaders and GOP consultants said the law was expressly designed to reduce Democratic voter participation:

The commission, which has subpoena powers, is charged with investigating violations of civil rights.

The request follows two stories in The Palm Beach Post, published Oct. 26 and Nov. 25, about the involvement of GOP staff and consultants in writing HB 1355, which reduced early voting days and proscribed the activities of voter registration organizations, such as the League of Women Voters. The bill was passed by the GOP-controlled legislature and signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, in May 2011.

Former state Republican Party chairman Jim Greer told The Post that while the party claimed the law was designed to stop voter fraud and save money, the true intent was to stem early voting, which GOP staffers and consultants believed favored Democrats. The law reduced early voting from 14 days to 8.

Greer is under indictment for allegedly stealing money from the party through what has been called a phony fund raising firm. He has counter sued the party, asserting that party leaders knew what he was doing. His trial is pending.

Former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, also no longer in the party —and reportedly considering a run for governor in 2014 as a Democrat— backed Greer’s claims that the law was designed to reduce Democratic turnout. A Republican consultant, who asked not to be identified, also said Republicans wanted to eliminate early voting on the last Sunday before an election because that day was particularly popular with black voters, and most of them have backed Democrats.

The letter to the Civil Rights Commission was signed by Democratic party U.S. Reps. Alcee Hastings of Miramar; Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Weston; Corrine Brown of Jacksonville; Kathy Castor of Tampa; Ted Deutch of Boca Raton; and Frederica Wilson of Miami. It was addressed to Martin Castro, chairman of the Civil Rights Commission.

The group hopes to shine a light on the errors made that caused so many problems for voters at the polls. In many cases the voter suppression tactics backfired on the Republicans when so many refused to leave the long lines even when the election had already been called. Many remained in line until they voted.

Castor agreed. She also said she thought it was clear that HB 1355 was intended to inhibit Democratic voting.

“But this has taken a darker turn,” she said, “The racial undertones are very troubling. We need to learn more about how coordinated this was.”

Florida House Democratic Leader Perry Thurston, of Fort Lauderdale, also called for a federal probe. He said Democratic lawmakers questioned the purpose of HB 1355 all along “because in our opinion no (voter) fraud was ever brought to light.”

In his interview with The Post Greer said f0llowing the 2008 victory of President Barack Obama, GOP staffers and consultants began to discuss ways to inhibit the Democratic vote.

“The Republican Party, the strategists, the consultants, they firmly believe that early voting is bad for Republican Party candidates,” Greer told The Post. “They never came in to see me and tell me we had a (voter) fraud issue. It’s all a marketing ploy.”

Mitchell, in a deposition taken in a lawsuit brought against the state over HB 1355, also spoke of meetings starting in 2010 at which new electoral laws were discussed. Mitchell’s name has been connected to charges of alleged voter suppression in the past.

Following the 2000 election, the Civil Rights Commission held hearings in Florida after the Florida Division of Elections issued lists of persons who were allegedly felons and who should not be allowed to vote. Supervisors of elections later found that many of the persons on the list were not felons. The employees of database companies hired by the state to compile the lists later testified that it was Mitchell who had set the parameters for the list. Mitchell was not called to testify.

Tuesday, State Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, who served for a year as chairman of the Republican Party of Florida after Greer stepped down in January 2010, said he believes a Civil Rights Commission hearing is unnecessary.

Thrasher also said he does not believe Greer and Crist are credible.

Crist is “mad at the Republican Party,” Thrasher said. He said Crist’s anger comes from being beaten by Marco Rubio in the GOP U.S. Senate primary in 2010 and subsequently running as an independent and losing to Rubio again.

And Greer is facing criminal fraud charges stemming from his tenure as party chairman, Thrasher said.

“I’m not going to give a lot of credibility to anything either one of them say,” Thrasher said. “You can take evidence from just about anybody and there’s a lot of second-guessing afterwards and a lot of people now who have an axe to grind and want to grind it. But where is the evidence that shows anything like that, that any senator voted for anything they thought was going to suppress turnout? I don’t think you’ll find any senator who will say that because it’s not accurate.”

11/08/2012

(This post has been updated to reflect changes made to the original Miami Herald story, which originally stated Romney had conceded Florida.)

In spite of the Republican Party's platform of denying both math and
science, it seems someone in the Romney campaign woke up and embraced the numbers:

Though votes are still being tallied, President Obama is all but assured a victory in Florida because the lion’s share of the outstanding ballots come from Democratic-heavy counties.

Obama leads Republican Mitt Romney by 55,825 votes — or 49.9 percent to 49.24 — but there just aren’t enough votes from Republican areas to allow the challenger to catch up.

Romney’s Florida campaign has acknowledged their candidate lost in Florida as well. Romney already conceded the national race after he lost the other battleground states.

“The numbers in Florida show this was winnable,” Brett Doster, Florida advisor for Romney, said in a statement to The Miami Herald. “We thought based on our polling and range of organization that we had done what we needed to win. Obviously, we didn’t, and for that I and every other operative in Florida has a sick feeling that we left something on the table. I can assure you this won’t happen again.”

"I can assure you this won't happen again." Hmm, why does that sound so familiar to me?

The Election Protection hotline has received reports of voters in Florida and Virginia receiving calls telling them that a new law has passed that allow voters to vote by phone with just a name and address. The caller knows the voter’s name, address and party affiliation.

Voters CAN NOT vote by phone in any state. If you receive a call telling you that you can vote by phone, ask the caller what organization they are with. When you hang up, immediately dial *69 or if you have caller ID, write down the number the call came from. Please also call 866-OUR-VOTE immediately to report the call.

Some African American, Spanish-speaking and elderly voters in Florida and Virginia are apparently being targeted by anonymous voter-suppression groups trying to trick them or intimidate them into not voting in the November presidential election, according to election officials and voter protection organizations.

The Virginia State Board of Elections is warning residents that "some Virginia voters, particularly older Virginians, are receiving phone calls from unidentified individuals informing voters that they can vote over the phone. This information is false."

....The lawyers' committee is also investigating reports from callers into African-American and Spanish-language radio stations in Florida that they had received warnings over the phone that election officials would be checking car insurance and registration status at the polls.

....In Florida, the voter who alerted the hotline described a phone call in which the caller said that a new law has passed that allows voters to vote by phone with just a name and address, he said. The caller knew the voter’s name, address and party affiliation.

Marshall said the caller evidently had access to voter rolls, and read back the information "to make it sound more official." "This isn't necessarily a new tactic," he said. "But it's early."

The article goes on to say that this tactic may be being used earlier than usual due to early voting, and voting by mail taking place right now, like that in Florida.

Ballots began arriving in Florida voters households last week. Normally early voting favors Republicans, but this year record numbers of Democrats in Florida are also taking advantage of voting early by mail.

You can read the press release on the "vote by phone" scam from the Virginia State Board Of Elections here.

The FDLE spent Monday and Tuesday reviewing forms filed by the Republican Party of Florida that were deemed suspicious by elections supervisors to determine if there was evidence of illegal activity.

"Following the review, there was criminal predicate," said FDLE spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger. "There was a possibility that crimes were committed."

Questionable registration forms have so far been found in a dozen counties, spanning from South Florida to the Panhandle. Many of the forms were incomplete, at least one was registered to a dead person and some in Palm Beach County included addresses for voters that were business locations, such as a gas station, a Land Rover dealership and a Port Everglades administrative office.

Upon hearing that the FDLE had found cause for a criminal investigation, Democrats responded quickly.

"It is past time for (Republican Party of Florida chairman) Lenny Curry and the Republican Party of Florida to come clean about their involvement in this escalating scandal," Florida Democratic Party executive director Scott Arceneaux said in a statement. "With almost 30 days until Election Day … Florida voters, election administrators and law enforcement officials need to know the facts. The Florida GOP owes the people of this state a clear explanation. If they refuse to come clean it is incumbent on the Division of Elections to investigate the RPOF."

Due to the voter purge by Gov. Rick Scott and the strict election laws enacted by the legislature, liberal groups are trying to make up for lost time on voter registration and suppression efforts:

In a conference call with reporters Wednesday, liberal activist groups said their efforts to register voters were overcoming Gov. Rick Scott’s bid to remove non-citizens from the polls and an elections law they say is aimed at dampening turnout among traditional Democratic voters -- women, college students and minorities.

“The attempts to suppress voters and make registrations harder in Florida were a blow to the heart of democracy. Nevertheless, Florida New Majority and the coalition partners are making inroads so that record numbers of black, Latino and other minority people once again will vote during the early voting period and on Nov. 6, 2012,” said Gihan Perera, executive director of Florida New Majority.

He was joined on the call by representatives from union and immigration activist groups like SEIU Florida State Council, Florida Immigrant Coalition and Mi Familia Vota. Together, the groups have registered 50,000 voters this year.

Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican Party of Florida are turning the effort to remove non-citizens from voting lists into a political fundraising appeal and are attacking President Barack Obama, Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, former Gov. Charlie Crist and others along the way.

But Scott says the effort that once questioned the citizenship of as many as 180,000 registered voters isn't about politics.

"You see, unlike President Obama's allies, I don't view the world through a partisan lens," says a letter mailed by the party and signed by Scott. "I'm appalled that so many Democrats have stepped up to defend the right of non-citizens to cast ballots in Florida."

The letter tells donors if they agree with Scott's voter purge, to send a check to the Republican Party of Florida. It suggests amounts ranging from $25 to "$1,000 or more."

The Florida Democratic Party said the state GOP shouldn't be using the purge to raise money when it's been involved in its own voter fraud problem. The state GOP recently fired a firm it hired to register voters when it was revealed forged registration forms were being turned in.

"It's shocking and appalling that the governor and the RPOF would solicit money while they remain embroiled in an elections fraud scandal. The right to vote is the most sacred we have. Instead of asking for money for their political activities - which remain under investigation - the RPOF should explain to the voters the extent of their involvement in this scandal," said Democratic Party spokeswoman Brannon Jordan.

Sure Governor Scott, nothing partisan or political about it.

Never mind that Scott has yet to actually find more than a handful of actual non-citizen voters, from both purge number one, nor purge 2.0.

A few words to Governor Scott: No one, Democrat or otherwise has ever "stepped up to defend" letting non-citizen voters cast a vote and you know it. It's the actual citizens who have every right to vote that your little voter purge net have scooped up in the process of looking for those phantom non-citizens.

10/01/2012

Isn't it funny how the Republican Party always sounds the alarm at the mere thought or possibility of voter fraud, claims that phantom voters lurk everywhere, and yet when actual voter fraud occurs, it's on behalf of Republicans?

Well, it seems it's happened again right here in Florida. The Republican Party of Florida hired a consulting firm to register voters, paying them over $1.3 million to do so, but the forms turned out to be questionable. What began as what the consulting firm behind the registrations claimed was a few bad apples turns out to be an entire organization of them, and it's no longer confined just to Florida. The Republican National Committee also hired the organization for work in other states.

The organization behind the questionable voter registration forms of Republican voters is called Strategic Alliance Consulting, and is run by one Nathan Sproul. When confronted with the questionable circumstances, the RPOF fired the company and filed an election fraud complaint against them. Strategic Alliance claimed the problem was just "one individual."

Later after the Republican National Committee also dumped Strategic Alliance, Strategic Alliance put out this statement:

"When the Republican Party of Florida chose to make likely libelous comments about our effort and stated that the Republican National Committee suggested us as the vendor, the RNC was put in the unenviable position of ending a long-term relationship for the sake of staying focused on the election," the company stated.

Yes, these are the same Republicans who cried "voter fraud" claiming ACORN was doing the very same thing, which it wasn't. Also the same Republicans who enacted strict voter registration laws in Florida that for some time prevented the League of Women Voters in Florida and other groups from registering legitimate voters. And yes, the same Republicans whose Governor Rick Scott has been busily trying to purge "non-citizen voters" in Florida (He's carrying out purge 2.0 right now) in spite of the fact that he can barely find more than a handful. These same Republicans are responsible for filing registration forms that, among other things, registered dead people, and changed voters party affiliation from Democrat to Republican.

Sproul said he created Strategic Allied Consulting at the RNC's request because the party wanted to avoid being publicly linked to the past allegations. The firm was set up at a Virginia address, and Sproul does not show up on the corporate paperwork.

"In order to be able to do the job that the state parties were hiring us to do, the [RNC] asked us to do it with a different company's name, so as to not be a distraction from the false information put out in the Internet," Sproul said.

Let's hope the investigations bear fruit, as Sproul has escaped others and gone on to continue all these years. As for a bipartisan investigation launched by Rick Scott, while many won't hold their breath, since other investigations under Scott have had a way of turning up absolutely no wrongdoing on the part of the GOP, we can only hope this time will be the charm.